AOpen's i915GMm-HFS Pentium M motherboard

TurboCatch, I love it

 

Good article, I was sold on it untill I got to the problems. Still interested, but I think we need to let them faff around with them a bit more, and wait until there is some more rivalry so prices go down and quality/reliability goes up. I think mobile technology will be pretty big in desktops for 2006, especially for HTPC.

They couldve have gone for a heatpipe setup (for cpu) like on the some of the Abit mobos where it sits over the the conections on the rear. http://www2.abit.com.tw/page/uk/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=AW8-MAX&fMTYPE=LGA775

Probably wouldnt be that good in reality tho.

 

Surely the reason for the unique heatsink is that there IS no standard heatsink for Pentium M, because they are normally buried inside laptops! Having taken the fish out of water, you can't really expect to just slap on your favourite oversize cooler, especially in a space-limited layout like MATX.

 

Yea, that's the whole idea - noone sells a pentium M heatsink. I dont see why they couldnt make the holes P4 size, then just insist on users ONLY mounting heatsinks that use the holes because it'll make sure that there's contact with the CPU surface. They could then provide a heatsink that's larger, but lower profile than they currently supply and use a bigger/quieter fan with it.
I dont see why the end user shouldnt be able to slap on their oversized cooler - surely the whole point of building your own is about CHOICE. If you want a big, Silverstone case then you have the space to do it, otherwise you can buy a much smaller heatsink or even have the mounting holes compatible with a silent, low profile watercooling solution.